


Three Dimensional

by mll



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13922253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mll/pseuds/mll
Summary: [CONTAINS ENDGAME DRV3 SPOILERS]Cosplay is the act of bringing a fictional character to life.





	Three Dimensional

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant for Kaemugi week and femslash February but then I missed both deadlines? Please pretend I posted this sometime last month. Takes place in some sort of AU where Kaede lives instead of Saihara but the same thing essentially happens; don't think about it too hard. 
> 
> V3 can get me to refer to every character by their first name and even spell Dangan Ronpa as one word but no one can talk me out of SHSL even in the year 2018.

“Hey, Tsumugi...” Kaede paused as the zipper crawled up her waist, as if that level of constriction could possibly prevent her from speaking.

“Either finish the question or don't, but remember to suck in since this'll be tight,” Tsumugi replied. She zipped the dress up the rest of the way, feeling Kaede's back muscles shift painfully with the sudden change in posture. You'd think that the girl they'd cast as the Super High School Level Pianist would be able keep a straight back for more than five seconds.

“Why do you think he was like that? Korekiyo, I mean...”

Once upon a time, if a friend had ever asked her such a question about a character's motivations, Tsumugi would have jumped at the chance to delve herself deep into the psyche of someone who did not exist. After crossing over to the writer's side of things, however, character analysis suddenly became a lot more cut and dry. Korekiyo Shinguji had been given the incest storyline because Tsumugi had happened to enjoy the idea of a boy in love with his sister on the day that the team needed a backstory for the series' 15th serial killer. It was something born out of necessity, incubated in hot, primal author appeal. Most fictional characters were like that, as it turned out, with no life beyond what their time-strapped writers had given them.

“I don't know,” was all Tsumugi said in response. “It's so hard to understand people sometimes”. She let her fingers linger for a second along the exposed skin on Kaede's back, and a full-body wiggle came up to meet her.

“Stop, your hands are so cold!” Kaede said with a laugh, but she did not move away. She was quite the physical type, as Tsumugi had discovered – though that had never been written into her personality. No one on the writing staff had given much thought to the specifics of what she'd be like in a relationship with anyone, real or otherwise.

Tsumugi had joked many times in the past about some fictional character being her girlfriend, but now that it had actually happened it was the strangest feeling. This was the first time she'd ever been romantically involved in any way with a cast member. Normally her role as a harmless side character prevented this sort of thing from happening, but something about that design had only encouraged Kaede to make a move – she had a thing for women in glasses, it seemed. Even the girl who'd become Kaede had eyed her up far more than was strictly necessary the one time she'd worn her real pair to a casting session.

She walked Kaede over to one of the many full length mirrors in her lab, holding her by the shoulders. Tsumugi had really outdone herself with this project, honestly. It had been a long time since she'd had to make anything cheaply, but getting to work with the most expensive purple satin that sponsors could buy was still a divine experience every time.

“So it's done now, right? Or do you have to put it through the machine again?” Kaede asked, referencing the completely unhemmed dress that she was currently wearing. _Put it through the machine_ indeed. She really didn't know the first thing about sewing anymore, did she? That had been deliberate, of course, to ensure that Tsumugi's abilities wouldn't overlap with the rest of the cast's, but it was still funny how the way Kaede held a sewing needle sometimes looked more natural than did her posture at a piano. Muscle memory was difficult to alter, something Kaede herself had noticed (and then chalked up to nerves) whenever her fingers had difficulty keeping up with all the concertos stored in her brain. Maybe she'd been a cosplayer too, once upon a time.

“Just a little more, and then we're done! This is just a fitting,” Tsumugi said. “But just look at yourself! Isn't this exciting?”

“It kind of is actually!” Kaede said. “Cosplay to me always looked like someone in a really cool dress, but there's sort of a creative aspect to it too, isn't there?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely! Any time you cosplay, you're bringing a fictional character to life: their makeup, their hair, the fabric of their dress...exactly what they'd be like if they were a real, three-dimensional person.”

Tsumugi had wanted to cosplay Kaede's Argument Armament design so badly that she'd been disappointed at first that Shuichi instead had been the one to drop that shotput on Rantaro Amami's head. The art team this season had drawn assets with a unique outfit for each culprit that they'd display during the final debate of each class trial in order to make things more engaging for the viewers. Tsumugi, of course, had made cosplans for all these outfits since the moment she'd seen them, but Kaede's went straight to the top of the list. She'd wanted to see that outfit in action so badly, to revel in its sheer level of drama – the _mask_ , the _flowers_ , the _elbow-length gloves_ , the quintessence of a refined pianist who'd just committed a sexy music hall murder – all while watching Kaede die. Unfortunately, Shuichi had completely ruined that possibility by butting in at the last minute. His Argument Armament outfit wasn't half as interesting, and now he was dead.

But if he hadn't done that, then Tsumugi would never have gotten to make this cosplay for Kaede. And it was nice to have a girlfriend for the time being, she supposed. This was somehow one of the most loving relationships she'd ever been in, even if it was based upon completely false pretenses. Kaede's actress might have been picked for her nihilism, but it was clear that she certainly had been _really really_ into women. Sexuality was strange like that, one of the few parts of the brain that could not easily be fictionalized. It was these glimpses of wig net underneath countless wefts of synthetic hair that really made Tsumugi glad that Kaede would live for just a bit longer. Though of course Kaede wasn't the one here wearing a wig.

“What character did you say this was again?” Kaede asked, swishing her ruffles back and forth in the mirror. Tsumugi opened her mouth to repeat the lie she'd come up with to answer this very question, and then immediately forgot every single word of it.

“Her name is, uh, Kaede, just like yours!” Lots of characters had the same name, this wasn't strange. It wouldn't give anything away just to say it. “She's very devoted to her friends, so much that there's nothing she wouldn't do to make them happy”. So far, so good. That was a standard character trait for girls. “In the show she's from, she's framed for murder and executed horribly.” Aaand now this story was now slipping rapidly into the deep end. Hadn't she had something more creative in mind for this than exactly what had happened to Shuichi? “But it's also complicated because she herself genuinely believes that she's the culprit and should be punished for it, even though she didn't deserve to die.” Tsumugi hit her brain against the wall, hoping for something remotely subtle to come flying out, _anything_ that wasn't just a baseless overextension of a simple character into some half-baked chapter one “culprit Kaede” AU, but apparently all her writing experience was just going to let her fall right through this one.

Kaede gaped in surprise.

“Oh no, that's so sad!! Doesn't she get a happy ending or something?” If she recognized any of the story, she thankfully didn't show it. Maybe it was too emotionally complex to ring true. There was no way of _really_ knowing how Kaede would've reacted to her own execution, even as the author.

“I don't know, I haven't finished watching yet,” Tsumugi said, though she'd meant to say no. “But I'm sure her memory will inspire everyone to move forward and do their best. She's the kind of character who sticks with you for a long time, even if you don't expect it.” It wouldn't spoil anything to say this. The Kaede Akamatsu before her was a two-dimensional side character living on borrowed time, not some sort of deep transformative experience. She'd never recognize herself in the dress she was wearing.

“Hehe, you sound kinda like you love her. Should I be jealous?” Kaede teased.

“Oh no, I'd never fall in love with a fictional character! Although...” She wrapped an arm around Kaede's waist. “I really like dressing my girlfriend up as one.”

...and that was just the problem here, wasn't it?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you liked this you can find more of my original work on wally-s.itch.io!


End file.
